


The sky is not a backdrop

by The Governess (Beatrice_Sank)



Series: Last of the Inked [7]
Category: All the Wrong Questions - Lemony Snicket, Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: (how comes this is not a regular tag), (should be a regular tag too come on people), Angst, Character Study, Desire, Eros and Thanatos, F/M, Kit has always been the bond between ASOUE and ATWQ, Literary tips, Money is no objective, Olaf had terrible parents, Pining and pinning, Pip left Stain'd to make things better, That time when they thought Lemony was dead, Things and people that pass, Things can get pretty complicated when everyone is more or less a murderer, Unhealthy Relationships, taxi driver
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-01-09
Packaged: 2018-09-16 02:19:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9269303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Sank/pseuds/The%20Governess
Summary: "She has to tell herself, she always has to do it, to remember when to live the moment and be happy: I am here. I am here.”“What happened to his taxi remained, for a long time, unclear.”Of how Kit Snicket came to be a taxi driver. One that drives all sorts of passengers.





	1. First Passenger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlueFloyd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueFloyd/gifts).



> If you're only here to read some Kit/Olaf, you can jump directly to second chapter, although there are some minor links between the two. I like the eros/thanatos business created by the echoes, but whatever floats your boat.
> 
> I had thought of this part as something noir, but it came out differently. The parallel between the Bellerophon taxi and the Snicket taxi was too good to be ignored, so... world building, here we go again. P. is Pip, obviously, and if you want his backstory, check out A Tale of Two Towns, still in the Last of the Inked series.  
> Concerning Olaf, I did my research, and we can assume that, at that point, he hasn't killed anyone we know (yet). It's still hard to tell, because canon is completely incoherent concerning Olaf. So, I don't know if he's already a murderer, probably, don't worry he's still awful anyway.

The lights of the street are dim and flickering, just as she would have liked them under any other circumstances, the taxi is late, she is in the heart of the heart of the city and it's raining again. She makes a vow of never taking another mission as long as she is on foot. Her grip tightens on the hem of her trench coat as she hears some ruckus in the trash area, and of course it is a cat, but she shoos it away nonetheless because her nerves are scratched and this business is a very sorry one as far as she can tell, even if she got to wear smoked glasses for once (but the bloody rain).

So much for being an impeccable agent, so much for being superbly rated: the others always encounter some difficulty or other at some point, sometimes violently so, but she never does (and she is afraid to understand why it might be so). On the off-chance, she tries to signal around that she is here, that she has the documents and that they should be hurry-upping faster than that if they expect her to give positive feedback to R. or whoever is responsible for this part of the probably bigger plot that she has got herself in this time. It's not like they ever bother to explain things thoroughly, especially in the last few years, since you never really know who you are talking to, after all, and in addition, explaining everything would probably bring people to pause and think about it thoroughly, at which point there is no way to tell if they will ever do anything at all, or any of what you told them to do, and the number of sides would grow so exponentially that she feels light-headed again, but it is probably the fact that she hasn't eaten anything since that blueberry waffle, because she is used to moral depths.

What a wretched place, she thinks while buttoning her coat. She looks exactly like how she wanted to look like, for once, and it is completely ruined by the rain and the wait, because this way she doesn't look confident and mysterious anymore, she only looks like a fool without a hood. She had worked so hard on this one. Retrieving the documents only asked for some burglary skills, but she has long passed the point where she should worry over such matters. Some code deciphering too, but please. Now, the trench problem is another thing. She figured it would be the perfect disguise for the occasion, nobody would dare to approach her, and the point was to be noticed, so for once she could be something else than “just herself, this is perfect as long as no one needs to notice”. After all these years, she knows that R. is being ridiculous, she isn't unnoticeable, and O. isn't the only one to have told her so. It's like some persons never recovered from her school years, when she looked just like a top student (which earned her terrible grades in Various Fashion Disguise, for she indeed was a top student). But at twenty something, when you wear a French twist, cat eye glasses and pleated skirts, people don't always think of remarkable schoolteacher, but rather of the remarkable type. She wasn't doing it on purpose, and it didn't work on everybody (for others she is just as transparent as she used to be), but she knows better than to believe herself a mere background figure.

She still think people deserve a thorough explanation. O. would say that is because she really is a schoolteacher at heart, and she knows he is right, but like everything O. says, said, it doesn't matter. VFD shouldn't complain that they have trouble recruiting if half the newly appointed members have no idea they have indeed, been recruited. You can't just go and pick every person who reacts to a “Have you been good to your mother, young lady?” with a semi-passable poker face (she tried to explain it was common good manners for some people, and they don't exactly need more of those posh archeologists, now, do they?), but mostly in vain. For some reason, people never listen when she tries to explain things, despite the fact that she is very good at it. She'd better take another job. Some of her abilities are blatantly underused in this field (but then, she muses, if she leaves, they might want to have that talk about grammarians, and then, the country would probably fall). She was becoming too old for this. She was becoming too old. And she actually likes kids, which is more than most people wearing French twists and cat eye glasses can say. But she also likes people who don't like kids, and that's definitely her mistake.

She really wish her associate would arrive.

She wonders who this may be. She has manners (she was always good to her mother), but she is too quiet and too sarcastic to get along with everybody, even if natural selection, in their department, acts in favor of the silent, cynical ones. She is like the next person, she has her preferences. She sees herself as a no-nonsense type, but there are not some many of them (I., S.; probably J. if she tries to be impartial, but they never pair them up, which is part rational and part cruel, for they should know better than to separate siblings, and sometimes they do know best; M. and Q., but that was before their marriage, and marriage changes people, doesn't it, so now she isn't sure, and D., most of the time). She likes the intellectual dreamers well enough, but they make far better friends than partners (M. is a good example of that, even if his specialty is a useful one). She sometimes wonders if the atrocities that pile up day after day in the organization are not, in good part, the indirect responsibility of said dreamers, who played an historical part in the hierarchy of VFD (see also: old archeologists). And even the young ones tend to get on her nerves a bit, even if they are peaceful, caring beings, and she feels ashamed but she cannot really help it, the H. and the C., the G. of this world will always annoy her as long as they try to come up with any kind of plan. Then, there are the angry ones. Those who have a keener sens of the mission, those who are either unabsorbed by their personal interest or too badly damaged to endure a crosswords puzzle and an old scary movie to get anything done. They are not always the best of company, but they make good partners. She has always preferred the angry ones. Lately, they seem to have multiplied. Her real dislike, or irritation maybe, but it so happens that it goes out of control, is for the dramatic ones. E. B. Even J. at times (but only at times), and of course L., bless him, but she loved him for it nonetheless, because we are never that coherent and because family changes all kind of perspectives. Those who know, who have good sense and understand quickly, but always prefer the story to the actual plot, with a degree of self-centeredness that twist their decisions. Or maybe it is instead a more acute consciousness of the darkness that engulf them now, an educated view of society, for they have read the archives, because for some reason that seems to be a common trait, and she should learn to be more indulgent but knows she can't. Sad, sad business.

And then there are those she doesn't quite get, the mysterious ones (which, in their usual environment, is something of an understatement, since they all are quite mysterious). B. Everyone like B. and she does too but the fact that everyone likes him has always been a kind of impediment and subject of worry for her, and now he is married she can even make less sense of him than before, because he offers to smooth and too normal an appearance for a volunteer, or maybe it is the money that does that, but she is always under the impression that he waits for her approval and that really creeps her out. No one, in their organization, should look so satisfied, she finds it almost scary. R. is also one of a kind, but at least she knows which kind, and it doesn't belong to her to try to understand R., so it worries her less. At the end of the day, she can only say that they could use a sociologist or two.

The cat make an unexpected comeback, and she is reminded that she should come up with new ideas as to who she is supposed to be, for the plan was to get noticed, but without a drive she is as good as cold meat (unpalatable, that is). She was to appear as a tired detective who had stolen important documents from her hierarchy so that she is trying to discharge to an accomplice, here in that dark back alley, and so on and so forth. This is a personal touch, and this is taking a potshot at R., so it is satisfying in every way. But now she must either find another way for her documents to be stolen without getting herself killed, or pretend that trench coat and smoked glasses are part of yet another character. Think, girl.

She steps out of the alley, a few strides further and she gets back to the agitation of the city. She grasps the stick that keeps her bun into place, takes it off, a few movement of head, different use of her trench belt, and she is some sort of Hollywood minor figure waiting for her lover. Karen Honecker, or Julia Greengrave. He… works in show business, but not under the spotlights. Tired of being an image, looking for depths, shadows… A technician, prop man, maybe? No, she is getting carried away by her disguise. Sensitive but bitter, a bit damaged – a screenwriter, forced to play out his own movies to convince doubtful producers, but one day…

She stops dead in her track, and it is probably for the best, and beyond what might transpire she realizes she isn't the best woman for the job, few people would ever take the clumsy something-librarian for a movie star, but it's a blessing to be blond sometimes – for she sees a yellow cab crossing the street like a bullet and engulf in the back alley with screaming brakes, erratically zigzagging all the way. This can't be good.

She carefully walks back to the alley, as if she had forgotten something there, probably her backstory, for all she cares now, and she glues herself to the corner of a dirty brick wall. She glides a careful eye, a car door opens, and it's P., nearly falling out of the cab in the garbage he has completely pulverized with his dramatic entry.

All sensory receptors to genre cliché brutally shut down inside her brain when he leaves a bloody hand on the yellow paint. She runs. He looks at her and smiles dreamily, as if she really were Julia Greengrave kneeling to take his hands, and says (it's too intermittent, even for P.):

“Do you know a thing about summer?”

She laughs, to comfort him, but inside her it's but a giant pulse, and she is taking everything out, bandages and alcohol, needle. He shakes his head and gestures her to get in. Before she has time to panic, he locks the doors and activates the metal panels he had installed to block the windows.

These things take forever to come into place. It's a long, agonizing sound of metal on metal, creaking because he never has time to grease them properly.

She wants to open his leather jacket, to see, but he stops her again. She is suddenly remembered of how small he is, for a twenty something man.

“It turns out...the double-dealing plan has a third level, and they conned us, those bastards. Luckily – ah – they appeared to think _I_ had the documents. Try to tell these guys the bosses would never let _me_ in charge of things like that, you know, not a stupid cabby…”

She knows it to be true. P. hasn't got any formation, and he came in late, when he was already an adult, and there is few things that VFD trusts less than a grown-up man with his own ideas. But he believed so hard. P. has always been an angry one. She loves them but, God, they are prone to the stupidest moves.

“Why didn't you drive back to the headquarter directly, you complete blockhead! Gregor would have taken care of you immediately, and I can manage...”

He coughs.

“One does not abandon a mission, and I couldn't stand you up, girly, for all we know they might have come after you like they were supposed to do, and without an escape… I know you are tough, but I don't see any gun in that posh overcoat of yours.”

Mention of gun prompts her to dash forward to his chest in order to unveil his wound before he can do anything. He is slower now, and she knows what she will find, the cab smells of iron already, sugary iron almost like the metal panels that plunge them into a brown light, through the slim rays that remain at the top of the windows. The rain signals coded gibberish against the roof. It feels like they are trapped inside a deadly submarine. There are two holes in his shirt, now blood soaked, but it used to represent the early album of a noisy rock band, and she wants to cry and vomit. She should panic, but at that point there is not much left to panic for. Why does this keep happening?

“Shoot me once, shame on you, shoot me twice, shame on me, right?” he jokes faintly. “Too bad I left my gun in my other jacket.”

He doesn't own a gun and she knows it, for violence, especially for him, was always out of the question. This is his paradox, as one of the most enraged agent, but she likes it too much to question it, and she only wishes they could all be like him. “The mission is too important.” It really isn't, but they would never get it, those ones.

He coughs again, longer, and bends over his wheel, so she let the thing pulsing inside her take care for once. He trembles as she stretches him out across the front seats, so that his head can rest on her knees. You should lay to slow down a hemorrhage, Gregor had said. But this way his legs were still on the driver seat, so he can think he drove to the end. She doesn't know what to say. They weren't trained together, they have quite different cultures, but they always got along, because he is angry and she is quiet, she believes, and also because she was there, all those years ago, because she took the train.

Trains are such terrible things.

“Gun seems awfully straightforward”, she says with a complete absence of tact. “There is nothing you could have done, this was no accident, harpoon or poison, nothing exotic… That suits you.”

These are awful words but something of the sort would comfort her if she was dying, knowing it was nothing foolish, even if it happened like that, just like that, without reason, without flourish or style, in a dark back alley, nothing heroic but violent, cheap, unexpected sadness inside a heated taxi cab. He understands it well.

“Yes… It wasn't fire. I am so glad, you know. That is how I hoped it would be. No fire. With the things I've seen, you wouldn't believe...”

He grabs the hand that isn't stroking his hair softly, and says:

“There should be no war.”

And she knows it is a mission he is passing on to her, and it only adds to her nausea, but she squeezes his hand because he is right.

“This is not in vain”, she says, and she hopes it is true. Her voice has transformed into that slightly raucous whisper she uses only in precise circumstances, her voice of emotions of sorts, with it she could tell him many tales, but there is no time, for you only slow down a flow on the outside to have it follow its course on the inside. He takes a deep breath and she feels suffocated too.

“You're a good one, Kitty. You have too many doubts and I don't get why you have to steal when there is already so much that is yours, but you really are one of the best. I am glad it was you, too. I had guessed as much, or else, you know, E. might have walked back home on her own, I am not a driver…Aha...”

He coughs.

“Anyway, this is so fortunate, because I won't have to explain. Can you please go back there and… tell them what happened? Tell Moxie I tried to do something. Bloody hell, I hope they're all still alive. Tell my brother. He's a massive dumbass who only thinks of himself but still… Maybe that'll serve him. My father, our father, you know, he was already…

“I know.”

She thinks of trains and empty streets, and it has changed so much since then, but he never returned. She tries to avoid it as well, but you can't always help traveling. She never understood what happened exactly.

He is muttering under his breath now, and in fact, it is singing, about a revolution that sounds like a whisper, so she joins him, and they sing along for a few minutes, to the rhythm of the rain. It is rather nice. When they reach the part about running, they have to stop because neither of them has enough breath to go on. She takes up stroking his hair again and says:

“I will miss you.”

Again, this is awful but they have learned to stop pretending, and this is in reality one of the best thing one could hear while dying. He talks again, and she is almost surprised:

“My papers, to Jake and Sally, if you can find them. My books and discs to some library, she will know. And… keep the cab.”

“But...”

“Do it for me, Kit. Drive. It must go, be useful to somebody. You hate walking around. You'll bring some distinction to it. And quit being a backsitter, girly. No money though. Money is no objective.”

She is stroking his face now.

“Yes, alright, agreed. Thank you.”

She has to tell herself, she always has to do it, to remember when to live the moment and be happy: I am here. I am here. These things are happening and it is important that I am here, I have to be present in mind. The sky is not a backdrop.

“No wars, Kitty. Fight the fight.”

“Yes. Yes I will.”

She is crying, and it is still raining.

“Give me a tip, then. You will drive me home...eventually…but I feel...I deserve a tip...don't I? Your pick.”

She racks her brain in panic. It is hard to focus with the smell, and the metal panels and the idea that their enemies could be surrounding them this very instant without them knowing, because P. is dying and there is no time. And then she sees it.

“Okay… Okay. This isn't a book.”

He makes a weird noise that is probably supposed to be a chuckle but comes out as a gurgling – the body is such a soft thing.

“This is a movie. About a taxi cab. You should really see it, there is this guy who is a driver, he drives in the night but there are some people he tries to help and – I'm sorry, there is violence, but he cares about people, even if he has seen terrible things, a terrible war… He saves a little girl and at the end...at the end – but I shouldn't tell, shouldn't I? I don't want to spoil it.”

He blinks, signaling that she can go on.

“He drives people for free, saying he isn't a hero, but you know, that is left to interpretation.”

P. smiles, as if to say this was an excellent tip, and he would check it as soon as he could. He closes his eyes.

“Remember”, he whispers and she has to bend to hear. “You should always share.”

She nods, because she cannot talk, and cries, and there are tears that fall on his face, but it doesn't disturb him now. She draws patterns with the water absentmindedly, because she is not there anymore, for a couple of minutes. It's still raining.

When things become too real with a dead body, she carries him in the backseat, banging his head everywhere because she cannot do it properly, and she uses her trench coat as a blanket. She climbs into the driver seat, thinking that she will have the right to throw up only when she is back at the headquarter, for there is blood on the leather seat and the mix is intoxicating. There is blood on the brake pedal but this is alright because she had no intention to use it. Distinction, right. The mirror shows her a wild image, hair in every place, misty glasses. She starts the car, half hoping there are some people lurking around because she has better to do than lowering the panels. Apparently, there was music playing before, because an old Leonard Cohen song start again mid-sentence with the engine. She looks in the rear-view mirror, and remembers she is no second-rate movie star, waiting for her lover, before taking off.


	2. Second Passenger

Sometimes, she takes people for a ride, because the sign says so, after all, and because the promise was never that precise. Occasionally she gains information in exchange, or nice tips, even if they aren't always given in the best of taste. She barely talks, but when the day has been a long one, she tells herself that it's her only contact with real people. If they are too noisy, she doesn't have to be there at all. Tonight is the good sort of night, purple-black and misty. She used to hate Novembers, but now there are one of her favorite months, so silent and still, with the sound of soft blowing on cold fingers.

In the distance a tall, skinny silhouette hails her on one side of the road, so she slows down without even thinking about it. She doesn't look at the person who comes in, she thinks of all the times she has driven that taxi through the city, so many people waving their arms at her without effect, as if they were saluting her or sending her good words, good intentions, acknowledging her work and she smiled sometimes, knowing she is going to disappoint them all. Except at night, the good sort.

She realizes she doesn't know where her client wants to go, and is about to ask when she hears:

“I was going to say the corner of Black and Perceroy, but I see we are headed for Memory Lane again.”

She almost drives the car into the ditch, but recovers in time, because she knows how to control herself and cool down. Not too much. She feels hot and cold, and very sick in the stomach, and the taxi crosses the night but as always, there is nobody in the streets.

“What are you doing here?”

This is lame but what can she ask that isn't already printed on some book's cover?

She feels – because she refuses to look – some movement behind her.

“I wanted to see your back.”

There is a breath against the crook of her neck. She engages forth gear.

“I missed your bun.”

Everything is typical, the bad taste and the creepiness, but he barely touched her hair and her hands tremble on the wheel.

“Charming. Utterly charming.”

She sounds angry and despising, and congratulates herself for it. He smirks (she can hear him smirk).

“Do scold me Katherine, you know how I like it. And I could use it, too.”

The next light is red and she briefly considers running it, because she really doesn't want to stop now, but it would be better not giving him any ammunition. The car slows down and pauses. She finally looks at him in the mirror, and the shock is still here. Hair is untamed, as it should be, eyebrows thick, much like J.'s, not quite joined, the face thin, sharp, just like the wrists, the ankles… He has a long, complex body. The way people sometimes talk about him is but a child's drawing, and can't project everything you'd like on someone's looks. He was such a handsome child. His eyes are bright as ever, in the dark compartment, and he looks directly at her reflection in the mirror, piercing her to the bone – she wants to scrunch up on herself, her arms compulsively squeezing against her sides. He smells like chimney, like he always does.

“You must stop doing that.”

Or, more accurately, why does this keep happening? Not often. Not what could be called – often.

“I would, but you always seem to pick me up. Every time I try to grab a cabby, it always turns out to be you. You are everywhere.”

He's lying, of course. He uses his low voice with her, his real voice, probably, but that doesn't prevent him from lying. She had no idea how he does it, but he always manages to get in her way at the exact right time, and for some reason she never acknowledges him.

 

She is a really good driver now. The light turns green and there are some other cars, around them, some street lights, some walls. He leans against the door and if she calculates the right angle, she really could crash rear her left flank against something, neatly, without hurting herself. Or even hurting herself.

He catches her glance, and because he always failed to read her properly (but she liked that, didn't she? She liked being a constant surprise, and sometimes it's like he has never talked to a proper human being before), he says:

“I wouldn't try anything even if there wasn't witnesses around, you know. That is”, he bents forwards, a little less than before, but enough that she can feel his body heat entering her motionless sphere, “unless you want me .to.”

She isn't sure what that last word was. She says:

“I should kill you.”

He chuckles.

“Yes, you really should. There is this thing about you and rules that I never got, even if those people never saw your true value either.”

She catches his eyes again in the mirror, there is a hint of sadness there, she used to suspect there was plenty of it in store but just like anybody else, right? Not an excuse, barely an explanation. They all had an eventful childhood. She turns left.

“Olaf.”

She is desperate, it has been a couple of years, and she just knows he didn't kill Lemony (yet, she adds, necessarily), because he cannot be dead for real, nevertheless she was always in favor of thorough explanations, even if, with him, she never reaches the bottom of the matter.

“Katherine.”

He is mocking her, she can see the light dancing in his eyes, it's the same as when he wants to be terrifying but she can still tell the difference. And the name. Nobody (except for her parents) ever called her by her full name, he does that to be annoying, and she wonders if he realizes that gives a lot more weight to the reality of their story, forcing her to be there, keeping her with him. The sky is not a backdrop. The day he will call her Kit would be the day he sets her free. Onward.

“I am responsible too. You know it. I was there, I saw. And who do you think stole those darts to the museum? It was planned in advance. I did it, too. It was an awful business, but we did it nonetheless. And I'm not even sorry”, she says, her eyes watering.

“I'm only sorry they had to be your parents. So please… Please.”

She can feel the blow – in fact there is nothing new here, but she has never been so blunt. Speak the truth. Speak the truth because nobody does it and it makes no sense.

His voice is even lower when he speaks, it seems that for once he understands why she is pleading him. It sounds like gravel, something you drag. Her stomach is a thimble.

“I know what you've stolen – you steal a lot of things. And you can put your regrets elsewhere, because I spit on your pity. I would be a fool to want to make you pay, considering my own history. Besides, I know you, I know you – these hands are clean.”

She still thinks he is making her pay. Perhaps he doesn't do it on purpose, that would be rare.

“This is terrible but now, imagine it, I tell myself I fall a bit less short of deserving you.”

He chuckles again, because deep down he knows how awful he sounds, and he is sort of sorry for her, because this isn't even halfway true. But he takes for granted that she always knows when he is lying, so he indulges.

“Do you want to talk about what I did? Or worse, about what I will do? I am the pot to that kettle only if the kettle is made of antimatter.”

 

Very few people tried to engage him in a conversation, at the Academy. He had, has a difficult first impression, because he is so bitter and constantly ironic. But he was so over the top that she almost laughed (popular people, like Beatrice or Lemony, Monty, Ike, laughed, boring people got shocked (Josephine, Charles, Hector)) before asking herself why. In the end, it wasn't that difficult to get through; she is surprised there wasn't more people to raise an eyebrow at him and say “come on, seriously now. I am Kit, this hairpin is mine, but you'll be allowed to call it yours once it'll be planted in you eyeball, or if you manage to open that lock, but your technique is all wrong, you know? Let me show you.”

“I know what you would do, believe me” (and he does). “And I hate you for it. I hate you, it burns me up, and don't get me to think too hard, because I will easily find a time when you did things to get hold of our money that would justify… not everything maybe. But a good deal.”

“And yet” he says, looking by the window, “I could be far worse. And now it is unavoidable that I will be. I am looking for those scums. And they will pay, never mind your family money. Given the way the three of you lived – live, well, yeah, I really don't think him dead either, don't blame yourself, it's not like I depend on your facial expressions for information, or else… given how little you cared for any luxury, it wouldn't make sense to take it from you, you would give it to me. Wouldn't you? If I asked in a little loud way (he's almost pleading in turn). But the others? I'll be the judge of that.”

 

He was so rude, then, she discovered, because he was violently conflicted. He wasn't supposed to enjoy being there, he had been sent for nefarious purposes, but now that he was far from home, he had came to like it. But there was no way he would obey their stupid rules, because who cares for crosswords when you live in a place literally filled with traps and old secret passageways. Screw the choir, he was going to steal those forbidden books on the top-shelf. He was always guilty. From everybody's point of view. So he had read most of the books he was supposed to read, but constantly made a show of having read none.

“At some point, someone must drop his claim and grieve. You can't kill them all. Please, don't kill them all. Don't kill any of them. None of them did it to take something from you. Why me?”

She thinks she hears him sight, but that may be wishful thinking.

“How many, do you think, my sweet, poisonous, soft darling, did it, at least in part, for my sake?”

This is terrible but at the same time, she knows it to be true. She told herself he would be free, then. That was a very poor lie, but she had thought it, she had thought of him the whole time.

While reflecting on the fact that could make her the worst of them all, she finally takes a real look outside and discovers they have drifted to some kind of suburb, with more trees than houses aligned on the side of the road. This is it, then. They are taking the long way. Her body goes limp in her seat at the acceptance.

“So that is your reason”, she says. “What would redeem people, what would stop it, you would resign yourself if they, like me, could just...”

She briefly closes her eyes, and there is no way to tell, but she thinks he saw her doing it. She has been distracted. Blame it on the trees, one after another, in a reassuring rhythm, on the small suburb, that gives the impression of an easier, more reasonable life. She was in favor of thorough explanations. Ah.

He takes time to process the possibilities. But very soon, she feels movement again, in her back, and before she can do anything he has grabbed her upper arm, is squeezing it hard and speaks into her ear, with urgency. Fleetingly, she sends a musical thought to P.'s spirit, because she is so glad to have kept his jacket.

“Could what, then? Could just _what_? Hell, can't you just...”

She won't tell. She won't tell, she won't tell, she won't tell. Because then what? What comes next? She cannot drives him through the night in sickness or in pain, for eternity. He is a passenger and one way or another, he will have to do what all passengers do. She is shaking again, and he feels it, which makes his grip less tight, more… She goes into analytic mode.

“That...(she almost laughs, but can' because he still holds her) that is very _romantic_ of you, don't you think? Sometimes I wonder if you weren't into fairy tales and romances after all, while making a show of reading Easton Ellis and Vonnegut when everybody was way too young.”

He whispers now, really whispers, and that is the hardest of all, and thank God for empty suburbs because here goes the wheel, probably.

“If I was… Even if I were (his grammar flexible, depending on the interlocutor), if I were to tell you “Yes, see, I am a good guy, because that is how I see the world and this, this is what I love., you heard me, I am not a bloody coward, it wouldn't change anything for you, wouldn't it? I was born anything un-noble, and there was no way for me.”

She wants to turn to him and she does, only a little, but he has access to her profile and this is amply sufficient, for now. Becoming noble. How does one become…

“Is that why you insist on the title?”

J. would have a field day, but he will never hear a word of it. Naive questions usually are a good way to ease the pressure, while she avoids the real ones, because once he was born to this family, he was already playing, and murder or let them be murdered don't seem to add to many other possibilities. At which point, we should talk about clean hands.

His hands have glided to her wrists, and he bents to her ear again:

“We all have requirements, but it all depends on who we want to impress, don't you think…Katherine?”

And just like that, he gets hold of the stick that holds her bun into place, and pull, just as she pushes the brake pedal and they slow down, slow down, slow down.

She waits for the liquid sensation of hair falling down in her neck, but there is none, because a long hand had caught it into a fistful. The brakes have cried a bit. She knows his face is in her hair. She can feel him talk against her skin, and he is desperate:

“Do you know, do you have any idea how many times...Damned you, every time I think I can't do this anymore. And I think one day, I will have you to face me again, that one day you will want to. I often wonder if it is too late to go back and it always seem to be way too late for me but then, maybe I should do it anyway, in case that one day, it will be worse, far worse than that. Do you understand?”

She nods quietly, and for a moment it drags him even closer. He kisses her at the top of her neck, very high, where her mouth should be if he wasn't forever condemned to talk to her back. The car is stopped in the middle of the road, and there are no lights apart from theirs, projecting long shadows on the asphalt. She wanted to look for a deviation to the city, but there is only one path, straight and dark. She feels so utterly miserable that she hopes that, when he will kill someone, he will think of her. She briefly allows her hand to reach back for his face, and even if she keeps looking straight ahead (is there any wild animals in this area?) all the familiar angles unfold against her fingers.

 

After some time, another car appears behind them and honks. She starts the engine again. They drive in silence, but not for long, because as the lights of the city grow nearer, he realizes he hasn't got much time left, and everything is so precious. He has sobered up, and she reflects that it is way easier on him, since doesn't have hair curling this way and that and getting into his eyes or under his glasses. So, letting her struggle with everything that has grown uncomfortable about her, he looks by the window again, thinking how good it is to let oneself be driven.

“I was surprised to find out she married that moron after all.”

Since this is Olaf, it doesn't really mean anything, so she let it pass.

“I was surprised too. Everyone was.”

“Don't get me wrong, the Lemon brother is quite terrible in his way, but at least he is not plain, old boring like Bertrand. Tamed a lion like it was a golden retriever.”

“You are very inconsistent, do you know that? I'm just as boring as Bertrand, maybe even more so, because _I_ have good sense.”

He shakes his head, smiling a bit.

“Oh, that's right. At least you didn't marry me.”

“You never asked.”

She has a right to be cruel to him, this much is agreed. Nevertheless, opening doors in the desert is a dangerous business, and she cannot pay him back in parallel fictions.

“Yeah, well” he says to the road. “Because you have good sense. But you're not as nice as you would want to believe, remember that.”

She spits a lock and smile the half-wise smile, the one she knows she will pay in earnest in a couple of years, when the horror of the situation will have completely catch up with her.

“I know. Luckily, you're always in need of a ride to remind me as much and sing me the Beggar's Opera.”

She reduces her lights, for they are back to the populated parts of the world.

“Do you think they'll be happy?”

The question is loaded, but she isn't sure with what. In case her answer may increase somebody's chance to catch fire, she lies:

“It is always hard to be.”

She thinks they will.

She turns left and check her mirror when a hand gathers her hair and begins to arrange it in a familiar way.

“Here”, he says. “Allow me.”

There even are times when she wonders if he isn't secretly reading some Jane Austen. And there is no easily accepted explanation as to why he knows exactly how to make a French twist.

“I played an old woman some months ago, one must learn some tricks”, he mutters as the put the stick into place.

This is one undecidable occurrence.

She has had time to turn again, slow down and park smoothly, because buns are not such complex entities, but still. When he is done, as she feels his breath wandering into the crook of her neck again, she announces:

“Corner of Black and Perceroy. Money is no objective.”

Bad taste, she finds, tends to be contagious. He lays his forehead against her seat and she has moderate remorses.

“Am I allowed to offer a tip; for my trouble? (Always that undecipherable punctuation)

“That is something you can always give without having to ask, you know.”

“ Try “To His Coy Mistress”. I particularly miss those four hundred years.”

“Yes”, she says with the lightest touch of bitterness. “And I know of a fine and private place.”

She hasn't turned to him, even now. After all this time, it is still too scary to face him, and too hazardous.

He laughs quietly.

“Won't you tip me back?”

She is less of his passenger than he is hers, and she would like to see him try if she was to intrude unexpectedly, but one should never refuse a tip.

“ _Hope against hope_ , maybe. Or the Bible, at that rate, but terrible sense of suspense.”

She thinks about Sonnet 129, but that probably would be too blatant a lie, so she lets the subject, as it should be, pending.

In retrospect, she regrets mentioning the Bible.

He doesn't kiss her goodbye, but she can feel two fingers lingering along the lines of her neck, from head to shoulders, and she wants to scream.

“Thank you” he says, and maybe he's talking about the ride.

 

Later, she realizes her usual hair stick has disappeared, and been replaced by a pencil where you can still see neat biting marks. She doesn't sleep for two nights in a row.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere in The Penultimate Peril, Kit says that you should never leave anything important and dear to you in a taxi. So, I guess that's where we are for now.


End file.
